.\" See section COPYING for conditions for redistribution.
.TH EMACSCLIENT 1 "2020-10-18" "GNU Emacs" "GNU"
.\" NAME should be all caps, SECTION should be 1-8, maybe w/ subsection
.\" other params are allowed: see man(7), man(1)
.SH NAME
emacsclient \- tells a running Emacs to visit a file
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B emacsclient
.I "[options] files ..."
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
This manual page documents briefly the
.BR emacsclient
command.  Full documentation is available in the GNU Info format; see
below.
.PP
.B emacsclient
works in conjunction with the built-in Emacs server.
.PP
You can either call
.B emacsclient
directly or let other programs run it for you when necessary.  On
GNU and Unix systems many programs consult the environment
variable EDITOR (sometimes also VISUAL) to obtain the command used for
editing.  Thus, setting this environment variable to 'emacsclient'
will allow these programs to use an already running Emacs for editing.
Other operating systems might have their own methods for defining the
default editor.

For
.B emacsclient
to work, you need an already running Emacs with a server.  Within Emacs,
call the functions "server-start" or "server-mode".  (Your ".emacs" file
can do this automatically if you add either "(server-start)" or
"(server-mode 1)" to it.)

When you've finished editing the buffer, type "C-x #"
("server-edit").  This saves the file and sends a message back to the
.B emacsclient
program telling it to exit.  The programs that use
EDITOR wait for the "editor" (actually,
.BR emacsclient )
to exit.  "C-x #" also checks for other pending external requests to
edit various
files, and selects the next such file.

If you set the variable "server-window" to a window or a frame, "C-x
#" displays the server buffer in that window or in that frame.

.SH OPTIONS
Most options follow the usual GNU command line syntax, with long
options starting with two dashes ("\-").
.TP
.BI + line\fR[\fP\fB:\fPcolumn\fR]\fP
Go to the specified
.I line
and
.IR column .
A missing
.I column
is treated as column 1.
This option applies only to the next file specified.
.TP
.B \-a, \-\-alternate-editor=COMMAND
If the Emacs server is not running, run the specified shell command instead.
This can also be specified via the ALTERNATE_EDITOR environment variable.
If the value of ALTERNATE_EDITOR is the empty string, run "emacs \-\-daemon" to
start Emacs in daemon mode, and try to connect to it.
.TP
.B -c, \-\-create-frame
Create a new frame instead of trying to use the current Emacs frame.
.TP
.B \-F, \-\-frame-parameters=ALIST
Set the parameters of a newly-created frame.
.TP
.B \-d, \-\-display=DISPLAY
Tell the server to display the files on the given display.
.TP
.B \-e, \-\-eval
Do not visit files but instead evaluate the arguments as Emacs
Lisp expressions.
.TP
.B \-f, \-\-server-file=FILENAME
Use TCP configuration file FILENAME for communication.
This can also be specified via the EMACS_SERVER_FILE environment variable.
.TP
.B \-n, \-\-no-wait
Return
immediately without waiting for you to "finish" the buffer in Emacs.
If combined with --eval, this option is ignored.
.TP
.B \-nw, \-t, \-\-tty
Open a new Emacs frame on the current terminal.
.TP
.B \-s, \-\-socket-name=FILENAME
Use socket named FILENAME for communication.
This can also be specified via the EMACS_SOCKET_NAME environment variable.
.TP
.B \-V, \-\-version
Print version information and exit.
.TP
.B \-H, \-\-help
Print this usage information message and exit.
.SH "EXIT STATUS"
Normally, the exit status is 0.  If emacsclient shuts down due to
Emacs signaling an error, the exit status is 1.
.SH "SEE ALSO"
The program is documented fully in
.IR "Using Emacs as a Server"
available via the Info system.
.SH AUTHOR
This manual page was originally written by Stephane Bortzmeyer
<bortzmeyer@debian.org>, for the Debian GNU/Linux system, but is not
specific to that system.
.SH COPYING
This manual page is in the public domain.

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